


This Isn't My First Alderaanian Rodeo

by bumbleking



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Humor, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 20:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16374212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumbleking/pseuds/bumbleking
Summary: The thranta on Alderaan are a convenient mode of transport for most, surely. Malavai would simply prefer to keep his feet on the ground where they belong.





	This Isn't My First Alderaanian Rodeo

**Author's Note:**

> so when you ride the thranta on alderaan the saddle seems weirdly big for just one person. and your companions have to get around somehow! thus, this.

Malavai Quinn stares down at the massive gray beast with blatant distaste.

“My lord, are you certain this is… necessary?” he asks, turning his head to regard Darth Baras’ apprentice over his shoulder.

The woman turns away from the shuttle droid far enough for him to see her toothy grin, stark white against the dark red skin and black tattoos on her face. “What’s the matter, Captain?” she asks, her voice its usual silken drawl, faintly amused. “You don’t like thrantas?”

The beast floating at ground level wavers its wide, flat wings in the air and makes a low, plaintive noise. Quinn takes a half a pace back, his nose wrinkling.

“I am not particularly fond, no,” he says.

She comes to stand beside him with her hands folded behind her back, a coy smile quirking her lips. “You’re free to walk, if you like,” she says, tilting her head towards him with her golden-orange eyes held innocently wide. “I could meet you there in, what, twelve hours? Or rather I would _greet_ you there.”

“Very good, my lord,” Malavai says dryly.

She rocks back on her heels and chuckles, and Malavai turns his head away to hide the smirk that pulls at the corner of his mouth.

“Shall you board first, or shall I?” she asks.

“You do love to torment me.”

“It is occasionally amusing, yes.” She waits, hands still clasped, that amused expression never wavering.

“I believe I will leave that particular honor to you, my lord.” He bows, gesturing like he’s beckoning her into a dance.

She gives his shoulder a sardonic pat with a gloved hand before moving past him, bracing a boot at the base of the wide, muscled wing of the thranta and gripping the high saddle to haul herself up. The beast keeps obediently still as she steps along its back, settling into the forward seat of the saddle with practiced ease. If he didn’t know she had never been to Alderaan—never left Ziost, even, since she had been taken there as a child, until her summoning to Korriban—he would have thought she’d done this before.

With the Sith comfortably settled it’s his turn, and he’s determined to approach it with no less confidence than she had. He advances towards the thranta’s head and it seems to eye him with near as much wariness as he feels. Animals have never liked him much, no matter the planet they come from. It’s safe to say the feeling is mutual.

“You have my full confidence, Captain,” Jzora calls from her seat on high. She’s mocking him, he’s sure.

“I shall endeavor to be worthy of it, my lord,” he says to the thranta wing under his boot. He’s so focused on getting a solid footing that when he moves to grasp for the saddle as she did, he forgets to account for the fact that there is someone in it.

He grabs her thigh.

“Oh, by all means,” she says even as Malavai snatches his hand away. His face is hot; he’s sure that he’s blushing. Damn. Jzora, at least, seems nothing but amused.

“Apologies,” he mumbles.

She waves him away then, to his surprise, offers him a hand.

She grows impatient in the half a heartbeat he takes to stare in astonishment. “We haven’t all day, Captain,” she says. “Unless you’d rather I haul you up by the collar of your uniform—”

Malavai grasps her proffered hand. “Next time, perhaps,” he says. She pulls him up and he takes his place in the saddle behind her, adjusting his position as she nudges the thranta into flight.

He swallows as the ground pulls away from them, gripping the saddle beneath him reflexively. “How—how long of a flight is it?” he asks, leaning forward so he can be heard over the growing wind.

“That depends!” Jzora calls to him, leaning back into his chest and turning her head, her grin now slightly wild. In this context it is not a reassuring sight. “How fast do you think I can make him go?”

“I have no choice in this, do I?”

“Are you holding the reins?”

“That is what I was afraid of.”


End file.
